Flowers bound by the red string of fate
by CheshireinUnderland
Summary: "if she had not been a human, and if he had not been a devil" In which soulmates are a thing. Some people really wish they weren't and the Victorian language of flowers is referenced all the bloody time. (Or, Byakuran has a soulmate. She's not too pleased about that)
1. Daffodil (new beginnings)

It was common knowledge that the moment you were born, you had an image, something linking you to your soul mate and vice versa, printed onto your skin in vivid detail.

Of course, as with most things in life, that didn't necessarily they were good for you, or that you had to fall in love with them. At least not in the way the masses seemed convinced you had to. You could just as easily see them as a close friend or a sibling as you could see them as a romantic partner.

* * *

A white orchid spiraled around the small delicate forearm, showing clearly on sun kissed skin.

"Mamá." The girl spoke, looking over at the woman who stood arranging a vase of violets and sunflowers. "What does it mean?"

The woman left her work and sat down beside her daughter. "What does what mean, little rose?"

"My mark, Mamá!" She giggled in that way children always do. Full of innocence and happiness without any idea of how brutal the real world was.

The woman smiled gently at her daughter and took her arm in paint flecked hands.

"The white orchid, little rose," She began, tracing the petals with her fingertips. "Means innocent."

* * *

(Innocent. She laughed hysterically, her 'soulmate' wasn't innocent. He was a monster. A human with a devils heart and horns)

(Was this karma for how she wished soulmates weren't a thing?)

* * *

Aveline blinked and looked up from her latest painting at the sound of the door to her apartment being slammed shut.

"Rose?" She called out warily, setting down her paint brush onto the paint pallet.

"Yes, Mamá?" Her daughter answered, poking her head of ash brown hair round the door of her mothers art studio.

"What happened to make you so angry?" Aveline asked, standing up.

Her daughters face twisted as if she was unsure of what facial expression to make. She settled for a small frown that reflected the irritation in her eyes.

"Odette found her soulmate today." The eight year old muttered as she stepped into the room. A book on poisonous plants held loosely in her grasp.

"Odette, isn't she the one being picked on by that boy, Gilbert?"

Rose nodded. "She wasn't wearing a long sleeved top today, he shoved her in a wall and the next thing you know, the frog on her shoulder was joined by a swan."

Unbidden, Aveline's olive green eyes dropped down to the bird pitched on an anchor that was tattooed onto the back of her hand. The once bright image now black and faded.

"Just because its supposed to be, doesn't mean it should be. Remember that, Roesia." She told her daughter, a solemn grow on her lips.

* * *

("Remember Roesia. Just because its supposed to be, doesn't mean it should be." She repeated, a bitter smile on her face as she twirled a stalk of hemlock flowers between her fingers and faced the video camera head on)

* * *

"What do you want to do with your life, little rose?" Aveline asked, completely out of the blue.

Roesia stiffened for a second before relaxing and continuing to pick the deadly nightshade berries.

"I don't know." She answered after a moment of thought.

"Hmm," her mother hummed. "I would have thought that you would want to be an assassin." She commented neutrally.

"Maybe I do and maybe I don't." The nine year old replied evasively.

Aveline sighed. "I left the mafia because your father, for all he was a violent man, was a civilian and whilst I do sometimes miss the rush I got from killing, I am content with how my life turned out."

"You can't really leave the mafia. It always drags you back in." Her daughter noted, deliberately ignoring the fact she had mentioned her father without being drunk or in one of her moods.

"Regardless of what you choose, I'll always support you." Aveline said, smiling softly at her daughter.

* * *

(You lied mother and now you're dead and I'm about to die and Tsuna is dead and _he_ is destroying everything and the world isn't right)

(Was it ever?)

* * *

A dozen bouquets of flowers surrounded the coffin.

'Calchium, pansy, lily of the valley, myrtle and white periwinkle. Mamá always said that she wanted those flowers at her funeral." Roesia thought numbly as she stared blankly at the body of her mother, forever frozen at the age of thirty one.

Her past had finally managed to catch up to her in the form of her soulmate and ex husband and his gang.

Roesia closed her eyes and tried to ignore the fact that she should be dead as well.

Purple flames. Violet if you wanted to be pedantic.

If it wouldn't be considered highly inappropriate and possibly insane, she was pretty sure she would have burst out into hysterical laughter as soon as she registered that she had _purple flames_ like the ones from her mother's stories.

"Fuck." She mouthed to herself, tilting her head down to look at the muddy grass.

Because now that she had Cloud flames, even she wanted to live a normal life, she would end up being dragged into the mafia.

A single crystalline tear dripped down her cheek before she brushed it away and hardened her eyes.

Tears wouldn't solve anything. She knew that they just made it all the more sweeter for people and monsters to destroy you.

Odette and the bully who was her soulmate sprang to mind. The tears she had shed as he tormented her with words and actions and dirty looks. The half hearted sympathy from her friends because she had found her soulmate, so what if he abused her? He'd grow out of it with time.

She remembered the day the class had been informed that Odette had taken her own life and how her bully had flinched as if in pain.

Soulmates cannot live without the other once they have found each other, and if for some reason they did survive, they were never the same.

* * *

("Lavender, hydrangea, hemlock, basil. I'm sure you can work out what they mean, Byakuran." She stated calmly, dropping the plants onto the ground as she named them, a hateful smile on her lips as she looked at the man fate decided to bind her to)

* * *

'Tsunayoshi Sawada,' she mused, 'was an odd boy. He knew that he would be mocked and abused. He knew that he had almost no friends, and yet he still came to school.'

She didn't allow herself to wonder about why the second she made eye contact with him, something inside her had started to scream. About how he would die and how he would hurt and a dozen other things that made no sense because he was there and he was alive and for some reason, he glowed with the brightest light she had ever seen.

* * *

("You killed him." She stated calmly as she pointed a knife to her throat.

A part of her wondered if she really had gone mad. It can't have been normal to be so calm even though she was about to commit suicide.

"What made you think I would stay within your grasp after that?" She wondered, a bitter smile on her face as she drove the blade forward. Olive green eyes locked with amethyst)

(The last thing Roesia Antares saw before closing her eyes forever, was the white orchid and the red rose intertwined around her forearm)

* * *

 **I have convinced myself that the creator of KHR! named Byakuran, well, Byakuran to be ironic. There is a high chance of that because, really? White orchid? Not the most villainous name. Especially when taking into account what it means.**

 **I have also come to the conclusion that I really should not be allowed access to WiFi.**

 **Flower language** **dictionary!**

 **Colchicum**

 **My best days are past**

 **Lily of the Valley**

 **Return of happiness**

 **Myrtle**

 **Love**

 **Periwinkle, White**

 **Pleasures of memory**

 **Lavender**

 **Distrust**

 **Hydrangea (Hortensia)**

 **A boaster, Heartlessness,**

 **You are cold**

 **Hemlock**

 **You will be my death**

 **Basil**

 **Hatred**

 **Rose, Red**

 **Love**

 **Orchid, White**

 **Reverence**

 **Humility**

 **Innocence**

 **Purity**

 **And that concludes our pointless information session. Don't let anyone tell you that I never teach you anything.**

 **Tell me who you think Tsuna's soulmate should be, please.**

 **Any who, thoughts?**

 **See ya**


	2. Yellow Rose (friendship)

'It is strange, being around Tsuna. He exudes a light that should draw you in, but it feels suppressed somehow. As if there is something attempting to contain it, but failing. Of course, that's not even taking into account the fact I regularly see him dead, dying or otherwise in pain, when he's right in front of me, breathing and mostly fine'

Roesia stopped that train of thought and began to hum lowly under her breath as she watched Tsuna run out of his front door in a hurry.

"Sorry I'm late, Roe-chan." He said, smiling sheepishly. Her olive eyes caught sight of a bruise on his wrist that hadn't been there the previous day.

Inwardly she sighed at her friends misfortune, truthfully she was more than tempted to poison all of his bullies, but she held back, knowing that it would be suspicious if they all dropped dead at the same time.

"It's fine, Tsuna. Don't worry about it." She told him with a dismissive wave of her hand, an amused smile tugging on her lips. "And haven't I told you not to add chan to my name?"

"It's hard not to." Her friend replied with an awkward shrug of his shoulders.

Roe simply sighed in acceptance of this and the pair began to walk towards Namimori middle school, Roe continued to hum under her breath before she opened her mouth.

"Something is going to happen. I can feel it." She informed her friend, a serene smile firmly in place.

He looked at her weirdly as he was prone to do when she came out with strange things, but she simply continued to smile serenely.

"What?" Tsuna asked finally. She didn't answer him verbally, instead she simply gave him an enigmatic smile.

"You will find out soon enough." She replied, continuing to hum under her breath before abruptly pausing her steps.

"We should probably hurry. You don't want to be 'bitten to death' by Hibari-san, do you?" Roe informed him, inwardly chuckling at the doomed look that appeared on Tsuna's face.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?!" He wailed, taking off into a run in an effort to get to school as quickly as possible.

Roesia blinked slightly at the spot where he had just been standing, before she threw her head back and laughed in amusement.

'One thing about being friends with Tsuna, is that I doubt it will ever be boring' she thought before running to catch up to her companion.

* * *

Roesia blinked slightly at the sight of Tsuna on her doorstep.

"...Did we have plans to hang out that I forgot about?" She questioned him, tilting her head to the side in curiosity.

"Ah. N-no." He stuttered, looking over his shoulder like he was expecting someone to come up behind him at anytime.

"...Come in and explain why you're acting even more jumpy than usual." She ordered, turning sharply on her heel and heading towards the kitchen. She could hear her friend hurriedly removing his shoes and tripping over his feet.

She sighed, used to his clumsiness by now and lifted the cup of tea she'd been about to drink when he had knocked on her door.

As she listened to his complaints about his new home tutor, who looked like a baby, and how he constantly fired shots at him, the only things that could come to mind were 'things are gonna get a lot more interesting now that The Worlds Greatest Hitman is in Namimori' and 'I should take to carrying poisoned senbon needles around again'.

* * *

"It's been a while since we last hung out like this outside of school hasn't it, Tsuna?" Roe commented suddenly, looking across at the boy from where she sat cross-legged besides one of her more innocuous looking poisonous plants.

"...I suppose you're right." He responded after a moment of thought. "Reborn, Gokudera-kun and Yamamoto-kun have been taking up most of my time."

"I think Gokudera-san hopes he's your soulmate." She commented with a slight laugh as her eyes were drawn to the tattoo of a compasses points.

Roe continued to laugh at her friends spluttering. "W-well, who do you hope your soulmate will be?" He asked in an attempt to stop her from laughing at him.

"...I hope I never meet my soulmate." Roe said with an uncaring shrug, rolling her eyes at his shocked expression.

* * *

 _The girl jumped slightly as the dark room she had found herself standing in was suddenly flooded with a harsh bright light._

 _Blinking rapidly to clear the fuzzy spots in her vision, she took notice of a chair centred in the middle of the previously dark room. A woman sat in it, head bent down causing her brown hair to cover her face._

 _"Who are you?" The girl whispered in question, taking one step forward._

 _The woman slowly raised her head and faced the girl with identical features._

 _The girl let out a quiet gasp of shock at both the fact that the woman looked exactly like her and that the woman was bleeding from a neck wound. The blood dripped slowly down to stain the white t-shirt she was wearing._

 _The doppelganger didn't answer her question. "Beware the white haired one who hides his true colours behind the mask of an angel, for a change is coming and if he catches you, your life will be worth nothing." She spoke in a wet gurgling voice._

 _"Who are you?!" The girl asked again, panic clear in her voice._

 _"...I am," the woman paused, blinking olive green eyes slowly. "I am you from a future that must be prevented at all costs."_

Olive eyes shot open as the owner sat up in a hurry, heart palpitating irregularly and her body drenched in sweat.

"What the fuck was that?" Roesia asked, breathing heavily as she attempted to calm down.

'Unsettling dreams, the mafia, what's next? Time travel?' She thought sarcastically as she lied back down in an attempt to get back to sleep.

Flashes of the dream she had just had continued to play over and over in her head, particularly the appearance of the woman, and the rose and orchid intertwined around her forearm.

* * *

 **Right...I suppose I should explain some things:**

 **Roe is somewhat involved in the mafia but she's not well known, and has taken time off to finish her education.**

 **The first part is pretty self explanatory, Tsuna and Roesia are friends.**

 **And that last part was her getting a warning from her future self.**

 **As for why I decided to largely skip the story, I've already rewritten the plot once and that was enough for me.**

 **Now I can get to work on the main story.**

 **Any questions, PM me and I'll try to explain.**

 **Thoughts?**

 **See ya**


	3. Hiatus

Hi…

I know it's been a while since my last update and I apologise for that.

I've been…suffering mentally and as much as I would love to have a new chapter for you guys, I don't. That brings me to the point of this…I'm putting this story on hiatus until I feel up to writing for it again. This chapter will disappear when that comes out.

I won't abandon it…I promise you that


	4. IMPORTANT! PLS READ!

Okay, so I'm not entirely ready to return to writing for ALL of the stories I put on hiatus...but I have somethings that I thought I should tell you, along with a few questions that I would like to know your answers to.

To begin with, lets talk about Black cats and smoke trails. When I went on hiatus, I had the beginning of chapter 7 already written and since then, I added some more to that. I don't know when that will be ready for publishing, but I'm hoping it will be sometime soon. It's in my plans that Shippō being Skull will be revealed sometime in the past arc (I dunno, maybe he was acting as Skull for some reason), though that could potentially change. I don't really have any questions to ask you, though any ideas for subplots and moments that you want to see are appreciated.

Secondly, lets talk about Flowers bound by the red string of fate. I'll be honest...I don't really have any inspiration at the moment for that particular story, though I do have some ideas for what could potentially happen. Things might get a little dark as there might be IMPLIED rape, so just a little heads-up for that. I mean...it is canon that Future Byakuran was fucked up. As for the relationship between Roesia and Past Byakuran, it will start off as friendship. Any thoughts or ideas as to how that could be developed are appreciated.

And finally, Down in Underland. I have started to write the next chapter, and I don't know when that will be finished either. I have had ideas for future chapters, which I will put after this section. There is also gonna be a chapter where the Arcobaleno and Skull/Videl talk about the fact that Skull/Videl is a demonic creature along with some other things (just fyi, Videl's favourite Arcobaleno are Yuni and Fon, though now that the curse is lifted, I'm sure he will eventually stop disliking the others). Any ideas for future events that could happen are appreciated.

Another thing, are there any story ideas, specific categories, pairings (I'm probably only going to be able to do OC X Canon Character pairings...that's the way my brain works I'm afraid), and so on that you would like to see me write? Please let me know and I'll try to do something!

 **Possible future chapter ideas for Down in Underland!**

 **Necromancy or Est autem necromantia: People should really learn to read the fine print. They should also probably learn not to interfere with Death's work.**

 **End of the World or Finis Mundi: In which Iemitsu is an idiot, ancient rituals are performed incorrectly and Tsuna has the questionable pleasure of having to save the world before dawn.**

Thank you for the kind words that followed my announcement to put these stories on hold, it means a lot and I hope to be able to bring you a new chapter for each of them soon.


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